No Food on the Table. Alive Series, Part 4

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23, NIV)

I have noticed that many grow weary doing the Lord's work. No matter how hard we
try for God, it seems we can never do enough. Whether it be witnessing,
producing Christian qualities such as patience, love, joy and perseverance, or
being involved in church, our efforts wears us out. Sadly, this weariness can
even show up among prayer warriors.

No one realizes that we may have a hole in the Good News Message we have
accepted. Too many of us believe that we have to do everything we can to be part
of the Kingdom, but this is not what God has planned for us. God never asked us
to try harder and harder for Him!

This is where Life comes in, the Life that Jesus promised to each one of us:
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life.'" (John 14:6, NIV2)
We are not the ones who have life.

We complicate things when we take our destiny into our own hands to do whatever
we can by our own efforts to make a difference for the Kingdom. Sooner or later,
it will become a burden too heavy to endure. Our whole equation falls apart, as
we have not incorporated Jesus in our schemes.

But wait! We did it for Jesus!

This is admirable, but it's not how God works. It's time we learn from God what
it means to serve Him: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and
humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30, NIV2)

While our own efforts put us in nightmarish situations, it is only by relying on
Jesus that we can become effective and produce fruit for eternity, without ever
being burdened whatsoever. Jesus is not only our Life, He is also the One who
gives us perfect, complete rest. We don't need to be burdened any longer.

Jesus put is simply: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me
and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John
15:5, NIV2)

Can a branch of a vine ever grow by itself?

Not at all. It has no life in and of itself. It receives its life only through
the vine. It cannot produce fruit on its own. The fruit comes forth only when
the branch is connected to the vine. The branch never has to work hard. It only
has to stay connected to the vine to produce abundant fruit.

Working hard to produce fruit will lead to discouragement and failure. This is
not God's design for us. We were meant to stay connected with our Creator so
that His Life can produce the fruit in our lives.

Jesus, our Savior is our utmost example: "Jesus gave them this answer: 'Very
truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees
his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.'" (John
5:19, NIV2)

What we need is Life. Only through Him can we produce what we were meant to
produce: fruit for eternity. Physical life with an empty spirit will never be
satisfying. We hunger for far more than physical life. Unawaringly, we long for
the Life that can only be found in Jesus.

In this world, we are not used to depending on someone
else. More often than not we are left to our own devices, as the story of the
Potato Blight, from the pages of Irish history, illustrates:

The Irish
found themselves at a disadvantage when the British conquered their island and
confiscated their land, and then rented the land back to the same farmers who
had once owned it. The rent was steep, and all profits of the harvest went to
pay the rent. The only way for them to survive was to cultivate potatoes, which
provided them with a rich supply of vitamin C, potassium and carbohydrates.

Then the inevitable happened, an awful disease called "Potato Blight" hit the
potatoes of North America. This fungus quickly travelled to Europe, and by
September 1845 it had destroyed 40% of the potato crop in Ireland. The following
year, nearly all of the crop was lost. This happened the next year and the next,
until 1851. The more these Irish worked their land, the less they had to show
for it.

Naturally, this didn't faze the British who had the monopoly of anything else
that was produced in Ireland.

The disease remained a mystery to the Irish. It was assumed that the fungus was
caused by excess moisture created by the damp weather. No matter how hard these
farmers tried to protect their potatoes from that excess moisture, however, it
was all for naught, and as a result, Ireland faced devastation. Mass graves were
erected for the millions of Irish men, women and children who died of
starvation. Prosperous villages were swapped with way too many graveyards.

The Irish who relied on the potato found that the potato could no longer sustain
their lives. No matter how hard they tried, they were doomed. How different it
would have been if they had been allowed to eat the produce of the lands they
were farming. No one would have died. Sadly, what would have been such an easy
solution was never implemented by the British.

This is how we often find ourselves in our day and age: spiritually hungry, with
nothing to satisfy our hunger. It seems like no one is there to help us. We find
ourselves carrying heavy burdens that seem unshakeable. Meanwhile, unlike the
British of that time, God provides us with all the means for us to have an
abundant crop that will last us for eternity, but unfortunately we don't see
this, and we refuse to trust Him with our hunger. We tend to view God in the
same light as those British in Ireland who didn't come to the aid of the poor.
We figure we need to do it all on our own, and thus, we miss the whole point of
the Gospel message.

May we wake up from our stupor and discover the vine that wants to sustain us in
all things. Those burdens are really unnecessary.

Rob Chaffart

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